When this opened with a wall of text (an interview in a magazine with the main character) I was a little worried, as it seemed like a big info-dump, but it actually worked pretty well, and was tied into the story nicely. Lemire has an excellent ear for dialogue, each character had a very distinct personality and voice from from the first time they appeared, and I liked all of them. Also the kids actually 'sounded' like kids which a lot of writers don't get very well.

It was a little slow to get rolling, but once it was going, it was REALLY good. Absolutely creeptastic in the second half of the book, in the best way possible. You see one creepy thing and go :o and then ANOTHER thing comes along that's even worse and so on and so on until the final page when you just go 'gaaaaahhhh!' (but totally in a good way)

the art seemed a strange fit at first, but when you start getting into the stuff towards the second half of the book, the choice of artist makes TOTAL sense. Also, while not as polished as I know some people like, the art was solidly constructed, and he's really pretty good with expressions.

I loved the little things in Animal Man. He needs to sleep, so he grabs the nap powers of a cat. He needs to not make the boards creak, so he grabs the weight of a bumblebee. That really grounded Buddy as a real person, IMO, as that's what we'd all mostly be using them for if we had his powers.

Really, that's what this issue mostly seemed to be about Grounding Buddy as a real person. Everything, from the opening magazine page, to the stuff with his family, even the superheroing he did adds to this idea of Buddy being a regular guy with incredible powers...

...and then you get to where he goes to sleep and you get the counterpoint to that idea. It's gorgeous and you get a really nice, horrifying twist at the end.

I fully recommend this book. Sure, it's my fourth favorite of the day, but it's also about the same place in my rankings for the month. It just happened to be a great day for awesome comics.

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Zack: I'm pretty sure our soul is composed of a series of toy commercials that ran from 1984-1988. When we die Hasbro does with us what they please.

I picked up this and Swamp Thing based on your assessments - so glad I did. I may just end up getting every DC Dark book now - well, maybe not I, Vampire. I was already figuring on Demon Knights, Resurrection Man and JL Dark though. It's like the early days of Vertigo again - only with a consistent schedule!

While I was skeptical of I, Vampire as well, (was getting Twilight vibes from it) Gail Simone is just gushing about it on Twitter, she loved it, and says she's not a vampire fan and says it's not Twilight at all, so i am gonna give it a shot.

and yes, I love the Dark and Edge lines. I'm so glad DC diversified their line.

It starts out really slow, even after I got past the first page I kept thinking "Oh, this again" until about the middle of the book. Then it goes nuts. (But never quite loses that sense of deja vu.)

I really wonder how it would look to someone with no previous knowledge of the character. This is the only title so far in the New 52 that I've read before. I read Morrison's run ages ago after Antho nagged me into it and this feels a lot the same.

I've also never read a single issue of Animal Man before this one. I caught the little shades of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing with The Red and all, but this was my very first introduction to the character and I loved it.

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Zack: I'm pretty sure our soul is composed of a series of toy commercials that ran from 1984-1988. When we die Hasbro does with us what they please.

I have now read Morrison's Animal Man! go me. That was trippy. Though, I guess that's to be expected with Grant Morrison!

It's also pretty relevant to the whole reboot situation, since it deals with the ramifications of Crisis, and everything about it is perfectly applicable to the New 52 as well.

That being said. While I do recommend it to anyone who liked the new Animal Man, and it does flesh out Buddy and his family a bit more than we can get in a single issue so far of Animal Man, I think the new series can easily stand on it's own without it.

Anyway, as mentioned in the Swampy thread, it looks as though Animal Man and Swamp thing will be crossing over, or at the very least dealing with a common threat, "The Other". Given Maxine's resurrection of dead animals and all the dying animals and undead monster in Swamp Thing, It seems that this new counterpoint to the Green and the Red deals with death and decay. As such I suppose it makes sense for it to cross over, as it's something that affects both plants and animals. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.